Despite enjoying monopolies across much of the country, ISPs continue to look for new ways to increase their profits. One promising candidate is throttling certain kinds of traffic to cut the cost of bandwidth on "unlimited connections". A U.S. federal court has ruled that the FCC is powerless to stop ISPs from throttling. (Source: CFC Oklahoma)

Uncontent with mere monopolies or duopolies, ISPs hope to use throttling, "speed lanes" to further increase profits

Is
net neutrality dead? The idea of protecting against the
creation of internet "speed lanes" and discrimination
against specific types of traffic -- such as P2P connections --
certainly still has powerful supporters, like
Google. However, the movement has been dealt several recent
legal defeats which may in effect make it possible for the government
to enforce net neutrality, leaving ISPs free to steam-roll the
movement.

A D.C. federal Court of Appeals
has overturnedFederal
Communications Commission sanctions against Comcast stemming
from 2007
throttling of P2P traffic. The court was highly
critical of the FCC, grilling its lawyer. It said the sanctions
were "aspirational, not operational" and pointed out that
the FCC couldn't identify a "specific statute" Comcast
violated. The judge commented that the FCC "can't get an
unbridled, roving commission to go about doing good."

The
FCC is likely to appeal the ruling. They also are looking to
give net neutrality a legal backbone. FCC chairman Julius
Genachowski has been one of the movement's most outspoken advocates
and is currently working with Congress to craft legislation that
would make protections against data discrimination the law of the
land in the United States. President
Barack Obama included net neutrality in his 2008 campaign
platform and he's pushing Congress to complete legislation on the
issue. Obama's 2008 presidential race rival Sen. John McCain is
one of the biggest
opponents of net neutrality.

Such legislation, though, may
still neglect to protect certain kinds of traffic such as P2P
connections. ISPs complain that these connections are
frequently used to commit copyright infringement. More
importantly to them, they take up a lot of bandwidth. The
public opposes metered connections, so many ISPs want to throttle P2P
traffic as a more subtle means of keeping bandwidth on "unlimited"
connections to a minimum. This could increase their profits
greatly, if rolled out across their entire network.

ISPs may
be pressed harder by new competition, though. The FCC has
announced a plan to offer speedy
100 Mbps national broadband, to 100 million American homes.
The plan, basically a jumbo version of municipal
internet efforts, would increase competition in theory.
Currently ISPs enjoy a monopoly or duopoly on services across much of
the country, and consumers have been forced to endure higher prices.

"We don't know how to make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk." -- Apple CEO Steve Jobs